Operation Brush Fire
Operation Brush Fire is the name given to a CIA operation against Los Eternos in Venezuela, launched in response to the 2019 Coup against Nicolas Maduro. A CIA task force, codenamed Anubis, was deployed to Venezuela in early July of 2019. The goal was to systematically destroy the cartel by either capturing or killing each of the major players of Los Eternos, assist the Venezuelan Resistance in the Venezuelan Civil War, and ultimately overthrow the Eternals' dictatorship government in Venezuela. The operation was unexpectedly a massive victory for the United States, as Anubis encountered a variety of other people and organizations that had, much to their surprise, done much of the work for them. Background TBA The Operation Evidence of Third Party Involvement Stage 1 of the operation focused on capturing or eliminating the heads of security of Los Eternos and they started with destroying the tentative alliance between Division 9 and Los Eternos. Their target: a DIvision 9 general named El Comandante. They first started by breaking into an underground Division 9 server room and downloading information on Division 9's "most savory ops". However, much to their surprise, when they reached the server room, they found all the data gone and the computers that had stored the data were destroyed. Stunned, Anubis team leader Arrowhead wondered if a third party organization was at play. Her suspicions were proven correct when, upon viewing security footage of the base, a group of strange people were recorded breaking into the base and massacring all the Division 9 personnel in the room, before downloading the objects of interest onto a flash drive and destroying the computers with explosives. This was immediately reported to their handler, a female CIA officer going by the name of White Widow. At first, everybody thought a third party member was also getting involved in the civil war and that these people were working for a third party entity. Their suspicions were later proven correct, though in a surprising way, as it turned out the actual culprit was really a civilian vigilante gang known as the Righteous Crusaders. They then had orders to find a Venezuelan resistance fighter that was imprisoned in a Division 9 stockade. Breaking into the jail, they found a rebel fighter who told them that, prior to his capture, he'd learned from a news article that El Comandante had already been killed, much to the surprise of Arrowhead and the others. Arrowhead now had more evidence of third party involvement, but they still had no leads as to who was particularly involved. The next operation involved targeting the cartel's training program, where they discovered that the cartel was using foreign military personnel with special forces background to train Los Eternos' sicarios, transforming them into elite hitmen. After destroying a cache of weapons to disrupt training operations, they found a newspaper detailing the massacre of several foreign soldiers that were training the cartel's sicarios. The picture on the news headline showed a man in his forties gunning down both Los Eternos sicario trainees and their combat instructors. Here, Arrowhead vaguely recognized the man, but because of the blurriness of the image, she could not tell exactly who it was. After reporting this to their handlers, they could no longer ignore the possibility that other people were also participating in the civil war, albeit for unknown reasons. To that end, White Widow tasked them with seeking out the strange individuals seen on the Division 9 security footage, if they were still in-country, in addition to their current objective of sabotaging the cartel's training operation. Meeting the Crusaders They found a communications station near Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and after breaking into the station and hacking the equipment, the CIA team discovered two interesting leads: Los Eternos knew of the break-in at the Division 9 base and even referred to the organization by name: the Righteous Crusaders. in addition, they found out that an American was behind the training program. The trail eventually led the CIA squad to a network of caves carved into the Venezuelan mountains. There, they overheard chatter that the American behind the training programs was using the caves as his personal hideout. Suddenly, Division 9 agents broke into the cave tunnels, resulting in a shootout. Coincidentally, Edward Maglio and the Righteous Crusaders themselves broke into the cave, intent on rescuing one of their own, as well as an American hostage that was also being held captive. The result was a three-way firefight that led to numerous DIvision 9 agents and Los Eternos gunmen dead. During the ensuing shootout, Arrowhead happened to recognize an old friend leading the battle against Brown's henchmen, another former Special Forces operative named Barry Maglio, and his nephew Edward. Though she was unable to get close enough to gain contact with Barry and Edward and talk with them about what they were doing in Venezuela, the encounter left her wondering what Barry Maglio and his family were doing in Venezuela, aside from rescuing one of their own. Upon their return to the safehouse, Arrowhead saw a TV news report detailing the assassination of another cartel member, El Oso, at the hands of a man named Corvus. This conclusively proved that other entities were fighting the Eternals, though Arrowhead was clueless as to who Corvus was, and why Barry was participating in the war on the Eternals himself. They later learned that La Plaga was also killed during a gun battle with the Righteous Crusaders. A Venezuelan news helicopter recorded video footage of Edward Maglio stabbing La Plaga to death with wrist-mounted blades, which revealed that Barry and his family had some sort of vendetta against the cartel, though Arrowhead couldn't understand the motive. The next objective was to eliminate foreign military soldiers that were training the sicarios. However, when they got to the training camp in question, they found all the foreign instructors already dead. Arrowhead suspected that Barry was responsible, since the scene resembled something Barry would do. However, all this changed when Arrowhead's comrades found an injured survivor of the massacre. Before succumbing to his injuries, he revealed the name of the true culprit: a man named Corvus. Intel found at the site pointed to another communication station near San Cristóbal, Venezuela. After fighting through Los Eternos gunmen, the team hacked into the radio communications and got wind of a manhunt for "unknown Gringos" assisting a deserter who ran away from the cartel's training program earlier that day. Acting on the lead, the CIA team soon encountered a search party and, following a brief shootout, interrogated the leader. The leader revealed that the deserter was to be taken back to the training camp he ran away from and, as punishment, executed with a machete as an example to others who may have thought of running away as well. Intent on getting to him first, the team combated a second search party, but ran into Barry Maglio and the Righteous Crusaders instead. Following a tense shootout involving both teams, the Righteous Crusaders became separated. During the chaotic firefight, Kyle Bates, a British national and member of the Righteous Crusaders, was found attempting to hotwire a Los Eternos pickup truck alongside the defector, a man named Rodrigo Valdez. They also ran into Barry Maglio once again, saving his life from a Los Eternos gunman who attempted to ambush him and kill him with a machete. Following a tense stand-off, the CIA operatives took the Righteous Crusaders to their safehouse in San Cristóbal. Unanswered questions At the safehouse, White Widow questioned both the Righteous Crusaders and Valdez, intending to know what kind of mission the Crusaders were conducting and whether Valdez had anything to do with it. Valdez cracked and told the CIA operatives that the Righteous Crusaders were attempting to save his life from the Eternals, who had orders from an American named Oscar Brown to apprehend Valdez. This shocked both Arrowhead and Barry, both of whom recognized the name immediately, with Arrowhead and Barry both revealing that the two of them served alongside Brown during the Battle of Mogadishu. Taking Barry aside, Arrowhead asked Barry how well he knew Oscar, to which Barry responded that even he didn't think Oscar had the guts to betray his country, arguing that it would be against his nature. Killing Oscar Brown Afterwards, White Widow was able to confirm that Valdez was right and the American running the operation was indeed Oscar Brown. Barry and the others were initially hesitant about killing one of their own. Arrowhead, however, was resolute, arguing that Oscar was no longer their friend because of his defection to Los Eternos and instructed everybody to take him out without hesitation. Edward, however, took the mission personally. This was demonstrated during their next encounter with Oscar Brown, which saw Edward and Oscar engaging in a savage hand-to-hand fight in front of Arrowhead and the others. During this mission, the CIA team also met Deathshade, a former British Special Air Service operative who happened to be training the rebels much like Oscar had been training the sicarios and they watched Edward rescue his sister Marsha, as well as American tourist Carolyn Maynard. The CIA team did not participate in the Righteous Crusaders' mission to rescue Carolyn's daughter Jade. Operation Cemetery The CIA team was later notified of intel regarding the existence of a human trafficking/child trafficking ring, with the intention of using the human trafficking victims/trafficked children as slave labor to mine a new rare earth mineral found in Venezuela, which the Eternals planned to use to create better weapons. They also found evidence of a possible connection between Division 9, the Eternals, and unknown Russian mercenaries, much to the shock of the Anubis operatives. At the same time, the Righteous Crusaders obtained evidence that Division 9 was involved in an extensive illegal weapons trafficking network, one than ran from Bolivia to Patagonia. They also heard of a particular individual who had gone missing while investigating said weapons trafficking ring. When it was found that the criminal network was a lot bigger than initially thought, both factions agreed to work together to take out both the human trafficking ring, and the weapons trafficking network. Operation Cemetery, as the op came to be called, was divided into two stages: the first was Operation Eagle Strike, a stealth operation coordinated by Barry Maglio and White Widow against a Division 9 outpost near the village of San Cristóbal, Venezuela: after speaking with fellow Anubis operative Larry Robbins, codenamed Badger, Barry, Ava, the Anubis squad, and Natalie linked up with Anubis operative, codenamed Cain. They then began stealth-killing their way through the outpost and later hijacked a helicopter carrying blueprints for a cyber-weapon. Following a run-in with Division 9 helicopters, Cain, Barry, Ava, and Natalie were able to successfully get the helicopter and the weapons shipment to an Anubis hideout in San Cristobal. Impressed with their skills, Badger personally complimented Barry and his nieces for their efficiency and commented that they probably saved millions of Venezuelan rebels and their families with their daring operation. They also analyzed the blueprints and discovered evidence of a conspiracy to wage cyberwarfare against the United States of America, as well as committing cyberterrorism. The second stage of Operation Cemetery was Operation Armadillo, a strike against Division 9, this time aimed at an underground Division 9 headquarters, FOB Armadillo (also the namesake of the operation), serving as a hub in the human trafficking/weapons trafficking network run by corrupt Division 9 agents and Los Eternos cartel members. With help from Barry Maglio, Edward, Mason Davidson, Kyle, Harper Michaels, and Olivia Martin infiltrated the base, at the same time Arrowhead and her team arrived. As the Righteous Crusaders and the CIA operatives investigated the underground Division 9 hideout, both groups of fighters found scientists working in the facility, unconscious but alive. However, they found dozens of dead Division 9 operatives, indicating that someone had beaten both teams to the facility and had essentially massacred the Division 9 soldiers. Puzzled, both Edward and Arrowhead wondered who would be capable of doing such a thing, since the rebels were incapable of such an act and that Los Eternos members wouldn't dare launch a full-blown assault on such a carefully guarded place. While progressing through the underground base, they eventually found the culprit of the previous massacres and killings, a former Special Forces operative known as Corvus, whom Arrowhead recognized as Charles Foxwell. Corvus was also seeking to shut down the illegal weapons trafficking ring/human trafficking ring. Corvus revealed that he was also after a highly-valued individual who knew of the Russian mercenaries suspected of being connected with the overall scheme involving Division 9 and Los Eternos. The Righteous Crusaders and Corvus were eventually led to Kate Adams, a CIA operative who attempted to infiltrate Division 9 to gain intel on the weapons trafficking/human trafficking ring, but was captured when her cover was blown. Kate was able to divulge information regarding the weapons smuggling, revealing that Division 9 was trafficking a cyber-weapon intended to be used against Apex Corporation, as well as captured Apex Corporation technology; Division 9 intended to reverse engineer the tech to create their own remote controlled drone weapons, which they were intending to sell to the Russians. After fighting their way out of the underground base and regrouping at a CIA safehouse in San Cristóbal, Kate Adams was sent back to the United States, while the Righteous Crusaders and CIA hit squad formed a tentative alliance against Los Eternos. Discovering the Babylon Coalition TBA Killing of Almagro About two weeks after Operation Cemetery, Corvus once again surfaced, revealing in a video posted on YouTube that he had murdered Rodrigo Almagro, a scientist working for the cartel that had built submarines intended to be used to smuggle drugs onto American soil. In the video, Corvus revealed that he was planning on personally killing El Toro. Category:Operations Category:Major incidents